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Hornád Canyon is about 16 km long stretch in the upper part of the Hornád river flow - from the estuary of the Veľké Biele vody (Big White Waters) to the Smižany village. The Hornád river created here a beautiful canyon - shaped valley. Its banks including the near ridges and hills are on some places more than 300 m high. Thanks to its tourist history the Hornád Canyon has a special position between the natural monuments of the Slovak Paradise.
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At the end of the younger neogen, the ancestor of the Hornád river flowed through the bottom of today´s Hornád Basin. In the period of time between the younger neogen and fourthmountains the land of the Slovak Paradise started slowly to descend. Hornád creek began to wash away the small parts of its bottom and thus arose Hornád as a river with its tributaries (Biely potok -White Creek, Lesnica, Big White Waters), with smaller tributaries, waterfalls and cascades flowing into the Hornád river from the Gľac plateau slopes.
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The first passage through the frozen water of the Hornád Canyon was successfully realised in February 1906. In July 1906 B. Hajtsch and L. Hajtsch rafted the Hornád river on a simple raft starting in Hrabušice and ending in Smižany.
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It was not always possible to overpass the Hornád Canyon. A rope gangboard at the place where the Kláštorská roklina (Monastery Gorge) joins the Hornád river was built in 1960 and the process of building up the Mountain Rescue Service Path was finished in 1974. This path consists of 7 small metal foot-bridges, approximately 320 m of chains built into the rocky walls, 140 clenches and about 70 m of wooden gangboards.